The Bureau of Pleasure Control Ch. 06

Smack.

"And, and," Piper went on rapturously, raising her hips as if she thought she could grind on the paddle before Kristen pulled it away, "I did it for the chance to play with a good little trainee like you."

Smack.

"I know you love making people feel," she told Kristen in a voice low and breathy enough to sound like an attempt at privacy, while still easily reaching the camera. "I love it too. Can you imagine what it would be like if we could do this whenever we wanted, however we wanted? Imagine that, while you hit me again."

Kristen felt dizzy, and much more conscious of her locked-up clit than she would normally be after such a recent release. She did love making people feel, and she tended to love it more the harder they embraced it. Piper's enthusiasm made her daunting to control, but a guilty delight to punish anyway. Her wild sort of beauty certainly didn't detract from the experience.

Kristen didn't trust herself to say anything more than, "That wasn't a reason."

Smack.

Piper moaned happily with the impact. "Okay, I want to corrupt you. How's that for a reason?"

Smack.

"I was sent here," said Piper. "My resistance cell chose me for this mission because I loved pain the most. They knew I could take Bureau attention like nobody's business."

Smack.

"I did it because I believe it was right."

Smack.

"I did it for freedom."

Smack.

"I did it because I fucking wanted to!"

"Stop!" said Officer Deacon.

"She owes one more," Kristen noted.

"Give me that!" Officer Deacon reached for the paddle. "I'll show you how to put your weight into it."

"Aw, don't blame her," said Piper. "She's doing fine."

"Are you afraid of the way I'd do it?" Officer Deacon asked Piper. "Because I could be convinced to let Kristen finish the set for you, if you'll read the statement. Correctly, this time."

"Yeah, no, I'm afraid I can't do that," said Piper. "You see, as a subject of the Bureau, I'm supposed to be honest at all times when in the presence of a pleasure control officer."

"You're also supposed to be respectful and obedient," Officer Deacon reminded her.

"I know, right?" said Piper. "So many contradictions. I thought the Bureau was always supposed to provide a correct path, no matter what."

Officer Deacon slammed the paddle against the side of the table with a deafening clang, threw it across the room, and grabbed Piper by the hair to drag her face close.

"Do you want your cunt wired shut?"

"Woah, officer!" Kristen grabbed Officer Deacon by the shoulder and wrist of her hair-grabbing arm and tried to pry her away.

"Because that's an option!" shouted Officer Deacon. "And you're running out of others!"

"Back up. Back. Up." Kristen pulled more firmly on Officer Deacon's shoulder and squeezed her hand, finally coaxing it to release Piper's fiery curls.

Ignoring Piper's wide, unreadable eyes following them both, Kristen led her mentor toward the door, feeling more disoriented than ever. It was as if she'd suddenly found herself holding up the floor, instead of the other way around.

"Shackles," Officer Deacon muttered. She seemed to be having difficulty finding words. "Chain her to the table so she can't touch herself while we... confer."

"Okay," said Kristen. "I got it. Wait for me."

#

Officer Deacon paced the lounge, taking vicious bites out of a chocolate chip cookie from the coffee bar.

Kristen watched her from one of the couches. When she'd wished for a glimpse of her mentor's feelings, this hadn't been quite what she'd imagined.

"Do you want to talk about whatever that was?" Kristen asked.

"Whatever what was?" Officer Deacon snapped.

Kristen raised an eyebrow.

Officer Deacon shook herself and grunted, "Above your paygrade, trainee."

"All right, then," said Kristen. "Well, she definitely thinks we're playing a super basic game of 'good cop, bad cop' with her now. Which means she's not going to trust me any more than—"

"Fucking saboteurs," Officer Deacon snarled to herself. "We're not going to get any useful material out of her. She knows it. She knows we know it. And the more she misbehaves, the longer we're required to keep her, which is exactly what she wants!"

"But we control what the time is like for her, right?" Kristen reminded her.

"Have you felt that prod in training yet?" Officer Deacon asked.

"Yes," said Kristen, shrinking in on herself slightly at the thought.

"It should have worked," said Officer Deacon, returning to pacing. "It should have taken the swagger out of her almost instantly, with no lasting damage. That's what it's for."

Kristen reached to the bar for an Oreo, twisted it in half, and popped one side of it in her mouth.

"Are you hungry, trainee?" Officer Deacon asked.

Kristen thought for a moment, then openly placed the rest of the cookie in her mouth, chewed slowly, swallowed, and licked her fingers as only someone who could enjoy taste would bother to do.

"Not really," she admitted steadily. "Comfort eating."

"I see," said Officer Deacon. "When were you planning on telling me your sense of taste had come back?"

"Probably at testing today," Kristen answered.

"Oh, 'probably'?" Officer Deacon repeated. "How reassuringly precise. Well, enjoy it while you can. We'll replace the test with your next injection."

"Actually," the apprehension dried Kristen's throat, but she finished her sentence, "I was thinking of opting out of further trials."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, not you too," Officer Deacon heaved a heavy, exasperated sigh and shook her head. "No, I don't need this today. You stay there, I'll get the syringe. We'll take care of it in two minutes."

"No," Kristen repeated. "We won't."

Officer Deacon's eyes widened, then narrowed sharply.

"Unless the injections have become a requirement?" Kristen asked. "Rather than a volunteer option for additional points?"

Officer Deacon huffed, stormed through a full circle of the room, and turned back toward Kristen, as if preparing to charge.

"You realize who this falls on, don't you?" she asked. "I was appointed to handle those trials, and if they turn up inconclusive, because I couldn't retain a large enough test group, that's on me. The woman in that room is my subject, and if I can't make a useful example of what she did, that's on me. You're my mentee, my recommendation to the program, and if you turn out to be a fraud, if you turn out to be another one like her, that's on me too."

"Do you think that's what I am?" Kristen asked.

"You're enough of a troublemaking smartass to be one!" Officer Deacon snapped.

Kristen swallowed, stung. "If I remember right," she said, "those are some of the same reasons you picked me for this in the first place."

Officer Deacon marched toward Kristen, who stood up to meet her.

The officer dug her delicate fingers into Kristen's hair, and pulled her into a sudden, savage kiss. Her teeth pressed Kristen's lower lip as if ready to devour her, for whatever comfort and intimacy that would bring.

Kristen wrapped her arms around her and kissed her back. Her heart lifted in her chest, but the rest of her remained poised and cautious, ready for the moment to break off in any number of directions.

"This is the life you're pursuing," Officer Deacon whispered, pressing her forehead to Kristen's. "If you're who I'm hoping you are, you need to understand that. Becoming a pleasure control officer doesn't keep you safe. You get to control some things, for some people. And some days, that's enough. But the more you control, the more you can be blamed for. It doesn't matter if there was no way to see the problem coming, or no right answer to choose. When you fail, you're punished."

Kristen rubbed Officer Deacon's back, sympathetically tracing the chains at her waist.

"How long has it been for you?" she asked.

"A while," Officer Deacon admitted. "Not as long as you, but long enough."

A completely insane part of Kristen wanted to correct her.

She laughed internally as she imagined the chains under her fingers clicking free, allowing her to relieve her mentor's frustration. She knew exactly where that power could be found, and of all the people she could fantasize about sharing it with, she'd picked someone Zach would never trust. Someone who probably wouldn't even accept it if he did.

The thought passed.

"If I could just touch you..." said Kristen, as though it were impossible, which it might as well have been.

"I know," said Officer Deacon. "But that's not what I need most right now. I need to know that I can count on you."

"You can."

"Then you'll stay in the trial?"

A warning prickled along the back of Kristen's neck.

"Control hasn't felt steady in your hands for a while, has it?" Kristen murmured against Officer Deacon's neck. "How satisfying would it be right now, to make a subject literally give up her senses with a kiss?"

Officer Deacon kissed her again, slower.

With great effort, Kristen put her hands over Officer Deacon's, and pulled gently away.

"How about I help you find a solution to our Piper problem instead?"

Officer Deacon groaned and returned to her pacing.

"That one's already a lost cause. The best we can do now is stop the failures from piling up and compounding each other."

"Why is it a lost cause?"

"She has no shame, no respect, no gratitude," Officer Deacon explained. "Which means we'll never be able to make her display those feelings authentically. The best we can hope for is fear. Fear is an inferior product, absolutely bare minimum, and to get even that, we either need foolproof, sustainable control of her pleasure, or we need to break her down with pain. And with a pain tolerance as high as hers, and no way of fixing her standard, minimally invasive device, the measures it would take to do either of those things will make us look like brutes. Spanking someone who thanks you for your mercy and goes on to live a more productive life is a PSA. Beating streaks of blood out of a brave holdout who's cursing your name is an invitation to riot. Piper is right, every second of footage we take of her will make the Bureau look either monstrous or ineffectual, both of which are a liability. And besides that, I just..." Officer Deacon sighed. "I don't want to. I don't want to do that kind of work ever again."

"Really?" asked Kristen. "Because it seemed like you were ready to rip her head off a few minutes ago."

"It never makes me feel better," Officer Deacon said bitterly. "Our job is to motivate people for the better, not truly hurt them."

Kristen had to hold herself back from putting her arms back around Officer Deacon.

"Okay," she said, thinking fast. There were enough pieces here to put together into something that wouldn't be too horrible for anyone. "The Bureau just wants us to use Piper to teach their values and make them look good, right? The effect is more important than the format. I mean, you rewrite the script a little each time anyway, to fit the case. So, there's no harm in getting a little extra creative, is there? I mean, people are already so used to seeing the same old statement readings and beatings, showing them something different would be even more effective."

Officer Deacon rubbed her tired eyes behind her glasses. "I'm open to suggestions."

#

"Here's how this will work," said Kristen, securing the choke chain around Piper's neck and feeding the end of it into one of the discreet tracks that ran through the seams of the room.

With a tap of Officer Deacon's tablet, the chain raised itself mechanically to the ceiling and moved itself to hang over the empty stretch of floor in front of the camera. Once in place, it wound itself short enough to just barely allow Piper to stand directly beneath it, with her back straight and feet flat, without incurring any uncomfortable pressure.

"We're not going to hurt you." Kristen cuffed Piper's hands behind her back, and showed her the thick wand vibrator from the pleasure implements section. "The opposite, actually. This tool isn't normally used for debt collection. Normally, you would have to spend points to feel this."

She turned on the vibrator and brushed it very briefly over Piper's clit.

Piper's knees bent reflexively, tightening the chain. She took in a strangled gasp and then hurried to regain her footing in a sturdier stance.

"We're not going to charge you for it today," said Kristen.

"Oh, thank you for your mercy," said Piper sarcastically. "That's what I'm supposed to say, right?"

"You're not going to be saying anything, at least not for a while," said Kristen, reaching to accept the ball gag Officer Deacon had already gathered for this purpose.

"Ooh, am I going to be the first televised subject to be gagged?" Piper asked, though her exuberance now felt more forced, tinged with disappointment. "People are really going to wonder now what I was saying, that you felt the need to hide from th—"

Kristen stuck the ball in her mouth and secured the straps behind her neck.

"When you're ready to tell us how to fix your device, tap your foot twice. Then, once you're locked back up and your service video is done, you'll be allowed to sit down and discuss repayment for the rest of your debt. Because of the trouble you've caused, you'll be choosing from a pared-down menu. I expect you'll be spending a lot of the next month in stocks, sensory deprivation tanks, and other dull, uncomfortable places where no one will have to pay any attention to you."

Piper's eyes followed her intently. Kristen could only catch so much of her expression with her mouth fixed around the gag. She might have been annoyed, impressed, or both.

"Is the camera still running?" Kristen asked.

"It is," said Officer Deacon. "Wow me at your leisure."

Kristen stepped in front of Piper, face to the camera.

"Hi there!" she waved at the lens. "I'm Kristen, and some of you might remember me from another PSA that ran a few months ago, where I was receiving the Bureau's mercy for my debt. Well, I've come a long way since then, and today, I'm here to give you a different kind of visual demonstration of how the Bureau's mercy actually works. This," she smacked Piper's ample ass, "is Piper. She stole a lot of pleasure, so, naturally, she got caught."

Kristen coughed away a sudden, sticky feeling in the back of her throat, and then quickly recovered her announcer's voice.

"She needs a lot of correction." Kristen spread Piper's labia gently with her fingers. "We could spank this overindulged vulva all day long and still not recover what she owes. But the Bureau is about more than that. Let me show you something."

She brought the vibrator wand back to Piper's clit. Piper was ready for it this time. Her legs trembled but held.

"Piper understands that if she loses her self-control now, it'll cause a serious problem." Kristen rattled the chain around Piper's neck. "Just like in so many of the situations we all face every day. She understands that, and yet..."

Kristen pulled the vibrator away and watched the feed on the screen, to make sure it had fully captured the way Piper's hips followed the vibrations, until they were completely out of reach.

"Yet she can't help pursuing the pleasure, even knowing it could kill her. Now, here's where the Bureau comes in."

Kristen put the vibrator back to Piper's clit and watched her closely, mentally timing the slight gyrations of her hips, the bursts of tension in her thigh muscles. Right before the point of no return, Kristen pulled the vibrator away, leaving Piper clenching her legs together against the nothingness in front of her, moaning behind her gag.

"We protect people from the collapses and pitfalls they can't steer out of themselves. It doesn't always feel good, but with reasonable cooperation, it's painless, and a whole lot better than falling into life's nooses."

Kristen put the vibrator back in place.

"Unfortunately, when people try to fool and hide from us, we can't always get there in time. That's when a little safe pain becomes the only option."

With so little recovery time, still so close to the edge, it only took a few seconds for Piper's knees to buckle, bringing her weight down on the chain. Her face reddened, and the beginnings of an orgasmic moan turned to a gurgle in her compressed throat. She kicked, trying to force sense back into her legs.

All of these reactions took place over the course of less than a second, the same time it took Kristen to retrieve the paddle from the table behind her and give Piper's pussy one more good smack, cutting her off and slamming her back to earth.

Kristen wrapped her arm around Piper's back to support her as she righted herself, though she no longer needed much assistance.

"When you fall into overindulgence," Kristen told the camera, "you can count on the Bureau not only to catch you, but to put you back on your own feet."

Kristen swapped the paddle for the wand again.

"And if you let us, we can even teach you recognize when what you think you want is about to turn on you."

She pressed the vibrating tip hard against Piper's clit while it was still reeling in tainted, pleasureless orgasm recovery.

Piper screamed into the ball gag, wobbled heavily against Kristen, and then tapped her foot, not twice but eight times in a rapid drumbeat.

Kristen pulled the wand away immediately and reached behind Piper's neck for the clasp of the gag.

"You know the line," Kristen whispered low, as she unfastened it and gently tugged the ball free.

"Thank you." Piper coughed and failed to remove the sound of strain from her throat. "For your mercy."

Kristen wagered that was close enough.

"You're ready to tell us?" she asked.

Piper nodded weakly. "Just let me out of these, and I'll show you what I did."

Kristen looked to Officer Deacon, who tapped the command on her tablet to release the choke chain, with a hint of cautious optimism hovering at the corners of her mouth.

"Did you believe any of what you said?" Piper croaked low to Kristen, as Kristen uncuffed her hands from behind her back. "I can usually tell, but you've got me. Are you a true believer or just a really good dancing monkey?"

Silently, Kristen led Piper back to the table, sat her down, and pushed the open chastity device toward her.

Piper waited a few more seconds with a questioning look on her face. Kristen only raised the wand and gave it a quick, harsh, buzzing pulse.

Finally, Piper sighed and picked up the device, following one of its chains to the latching device at the end and holding it up to the light.

"See how it's bent just a millimeter or so off?" she asked.

Kristen and Officer Deacon both leaned in close to squint at the nearly imperceptible irregularity.

"Don't worry, I couldn't do anything to it while I was wearing it," said Piper. "I made the modification during a 'legitimate' unlocking session, while the officer's back was turned. And now...."

She fed the chain into the mechanism and held it out for Officer Deacon to tap her keycard to its sensor. The officer entered the command to secure the device, and it tightened itself around an imaginary person.

Once the chains were finished reeling themselves in, Piper grabbed the chain on the side she'd been demonstrating with, applied pressure at a very precise diagonal angle, and popped it free.

The trick was so subtle that Kristen almost missed it.

At the same time as making such a show of getting the perfect leverage, Piper pressed her thumb against the device's sensor. She had a slight lump under the skin of her thumb pad, easily mistaken for a callus, but exactly the same shape as the stone on Zach's ring. When it touched the sensor, it emitted the briefest flash of light.